14 months

Or perhaps a better title of this post would be "The Reluctant Walker." While Asher has recently been working on a getting better at a major milestone (see my previous post), Julia has been working on her own milestone--slowly. For the last 4 weeks or so, Julia has wanted to walk and walk and walk, holding onto someone's finger all the while. It was sweet, but it was (and is) getting old. Over the course of these weeks, it has become more and more obvious to the hand holder that really she is doing all the work; the finger is a mere crutch. But getting this girl to even try a step on her own has been a real trick. You pry her finger a way, and she instantly sits. She doesn't even want to try standing independently.

We have persisted. Come on? Isn't independence wonderfully liberating? Don't you want to go after your desire at your will? Last week, we were finally able to get her to take a few steps between us. Then we decided to up the ante by putting our monkey backpack on her to trick her into thinking we were being her crutch. It actually worked for a  bit as she managed to walk across several rooms without any help; the leash was doing nothing but acting as a placebo.

She would do this, and I thought she would really start taking off. That hasn't really happened. She still prefers the walk between mommy and daddy game. I think she likes the attention. Today she has taken a few more independent steps from furniture to me, so maybe we are turning a corner and by next week she will be full on walking. The thing is, she already can walk, but we must work on the confidence I suppose. All in good time. If my kids have helped me work on any virtues in my life, it has been patience. ;)

Mind you, I am not concerned about her walking and age. There is no reason to be. It's just that I am tired of walking with her all the time and know that she will find a level of happiness she doesn't know about yet when she does take to walking.

On other fronts, she loves to jabber. She has her own little version of "tickle" that is pretty cute. She has learned to climb on a few things. She waves. I think she might be transitioning to one nap a day, but she also has gotten a cold in the last couple of days that has interrupted her changing sleep pattern.

More than anything, this girl is pretty much awesome and we love her! But please start walking already. Pretty please? :)